Doctors could pressure women who have pre-natal diagnosis
German study Recent breakthoughs in pre-natal diagnosis raise serious ethical questions, notes an article in the journal Nature Reviews Genetics by German doctors. It now...
Star shortstop’s career depends on DNA test
Dominican 16-year-old awaits resultsSixteen-year-old shortstop Miguel Sano is the hottest prospect that US baseball scouts have seen in a long, long time. But nearly six...
Grandparents financing British IVF
Relieving the distress of their older children. In vitro fertilisation clinics should be doing a freeze during the recession, but in Britain their income is...
UK nurses go neutral on assisted suicide
Only tiny fraction support it. The peak body for nurses in the UK, the Royal College of Nursing, has become the only major medical institution...
Between life and death
Many doctors misdiagnose the so-called vegetative state. Few end-of-life decisions can be more heart-wrenching for relatives than assenting to a doctor’s recommendation that life support...
UK may allow market in sperm donation
Proposal by new HFEA chairThe UK’s fertility watchdog is thinking of reversing its long-standing ban on allowing eggs and sperm to be sold. The new...
Hey, buddy! Wanna buy a kidney?
Even in the US, a black market could be flourishingBlack markets in organs for transplant surgery are not a monopoly of developing countries like Pakistan...
Journal retracts controversial paper about artificial sperm
Allegations of plagiarism The journal which published a startling paper claiming to have derived sperm cells from human embryonic stem cells has taken the radical...
House of Lords asks government for clarity on Swiss suicide trips
Debbie Purdy scores a small victory in long legal battle A woman wheelchair-bound by severe multiple sclerosis has succeeded in forcing the UK government to...
PGD could cause long-term problems
PGD mice have poorer memories Preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) is offered by many IVF clinics to guarantee a healthy baby or a baby of the...
Foetuses can remember
Research by Dutch scientists Dutch scientists have discovered that 30-week foetuses have memories. A study in the July/August 2009 issue of the journal Child Development...
Adult stem cells quietly surging ahead
Embryonic stem cells said to be "gold standard", but hampered by fears of tumours Only a year ago, the stem cell wars were cemented into...